The Augustinian Theodicy Essay Example for Free

The Augustinian Theodicy EssayThroughout history, the problems of evil-minded and pitiable have ever so been prevalent in the world. The problems can be split up into two types moral evil and innate(p) suffering. Moral evil is generally viewed as anything that is caused by humans and inflicts pain ( sensible or psychological) or stopping point or obstructs lifes freedom and/or expression for example, murder, war, crime. Natural suffering is generally viewed as events that occur because of the physical world or environment for example, earthquakes, volcanoes, flooding. Evil and suffering thitherfore present believers in the idol of Greco-Roman Theism with a logical problem- one of them introduction the Inconsistent Triad. The Inconsistent Triad consists of three premises 1- perfection is omnipotent 2- paragon is omnibenevolent 3- there is evil in the world. All three premises can non be received at the same time which means either idol does not exist or there is no e vil in the world.St Augustine of Hippo, who lived from 354 to 430 AD in the Roman Province of Africa, was a Manichaean (Persian and Dualist religion) in his early until he later converted to Christianity. Augustine proposed a theodicy, which is an attempt to reconcile the existence of an omnibenevolent and omnipotent theology with the undeniable fact of evil and suffering in the world it is derived from the Greek words theos or God and dike or justice. Augustines theodicy explains that according to Genesis, God being perfect created a perfect world where because of His skilful and perfection, God gave humans free will. therefrom, the possibility of evil is necessary as the world can never be as perfect as God. The Fall is also central to his theodicy because when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, mans master purity was lost and all their descendents inherited original sin and original guilt because they were seminally present in the loins of Adam. As a result, we all deserve the conseq uences which means moral evil is a injure of our freedom and lifelike evil is punishment for all mans sins.The theodicy goes save in explaining that we cannot blame God for evil as evil is not a thing in itself but rather privatio boni, which is Latin for the want of good. This means evil is not an entity, but a lack of goodness or righteousness and then evil only happens when good goes wrong. Augustines theodicy essentially says that God is right not to interfere with problems of evil and suffering in the world, as it is perfectly justified that we should suffer and at the end of our lives- if we have accepted that Gods mercy is necessary- we will go to Heaven, otherwise all non-believers will be punished in Hell for eternity.For whatever Christians- mainly fundamental Christians- Augustines theodicy succeeds in justifying evil and suffering in the world. However, for non-Christians and even liberal Christians, the theodicy fails for a physique of different reasons. The the odicy fails in some ways because of the advance in science. Augustines theodicy is based on the Bible being interpreted as literal which opens him up to two scientific criticisms.In contrast to developing theory, which is at a time widely accepted as an explanation for the existence of complex organisms through the gradual process of natural selection and random mutations over generations, if the Bible is taken as literal truth, then the theodicy is the reverse of evolution as it prescribes humans were created first. Another scientific criticism is whilst Augustine says we were all seminally present in the loins of Adam, our genes bespeak otherwise. Not only does each person have their own unique DNA (with the exception of uniform twins), other factors contribute to how a person develops, such as their socialization, which can create psychological differences too. Therefore it would be wrong to say that all humans atomic number 18 the same as Adam.Furthermore, there are logical criticisms of Augustines theodicy. If evil is not a thing in itself, then good and evil would chartless to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. So in Genesis, when Eve ate the forbidden fruit, she had no concept of evil. Schleiermacher, a late 18th/early 19th Century German philosopher, agreed the theodicy is blemish because he said it was a logical contradiction to say that a perfectly created world had asleep(p) wrong, since this would mean that evil had created itself ex nihilo, which is impossible. Either the world was created imperfect or God allowed it to go wrong. possibly the most important criticisms are moral as they challenge God. Being omniscient, God should have know that things would go wrong and being omnipotent, He could have made creation better and less flawed. Also, the creation of Hell is puzzling because surely God would not create it unless He knew that The Fall would happen which further questions His perfection. Not only that, the selection process for Hea ven is discriminate as Heaven can be viewed as an exclusive club for people who have turned to Christ and accepted the need for Gods forgiveness. Therefore, God is wasteful of good souls as they would be punished eternally for having no Christian belief- even if they had been virtuously good people their whole lives. This clearly questions Gods omnibenevolence and fairness.At first evaluation, St Augustines theodicy appears to make some good points astir(predicate) the reasons for evil and suffering in the world, particularly his comparison of evil to darkness and them being an absence of good and light respectively. However on closer inspection, there are some clear flaws with the theodicy which challenge the God of Classical Theism as they criticise His creation and more importantly- Gods omnibenevolence. The theodicy works well for fundamental Christians, but is not effective in convincing other Christians and non-Christians into the reasons for the existence of evil and sufferi ng in the world as it presents us with an arbitrary and flawed God.